Ireland

They measure and esteem men according to their moral and intellectual worth, and not according to the color of their skin. Whatever may be said of the aristocracies here, there is none based on the color of a man's skin. ~ Frederick Douglass

Ireland is an island nation that has never developed a navy; a music-loving people who have produced only those harmless lilting ditties as their musical legacy; a bellicose people who have never known the sweet savor of victory in a single war. ~ Pat Conroy

The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling. ~ Sydney Smith

What captivity has been to the Jews, exile has been to the Irish. For us, the romance of our native land begins only after we have left home; it is really only with other people that we become Irishmen. ~ Peter Ackroyd

I was stopped by a soldier, he said 'You are a swine'. He hit me with his rifle and he kicked me in the groin, I begged and I pleaded, sure my manners were polite. But all the time I'm thinking of my little Armalite. ~ "My Little Armalite"

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Ireland would not turn into a Marxist country, for all their wishes. The list of such nations was very thin now, though across the world academics still clung to the words and ideas of Marx and Engles and even Lenin. Fools.

It is a nation of contradictions, sir. Consider this: Ireland is an island nation that has never developed a navy; a music-loving people who have produced only those harmless lilting ditties as their musical legacy; a bellicose people who have never known the sweet savor of victory in a single war; a Catholic country that has never produced a single doctor of the Church; a magnificently beautiful country, a country to inspire artists, but a country not yet immortalized in art; a philosophic people yet to produce a single philosopher of note; a sensual people who have never mastered the art of preparing food.

There have been many definitions of hell, but for the English the best definition is that it is the place where the Germans are the police, the Swedish are the comedians, the Italians are the defense force, Frenchmen dig the roads, the Belgians are the pop singers, the Spanish run the railways, the Turks cook the food, the Irish are the waiters, the Greeks run the government, and the common language is Dutch.

David Frost and Anthony Jay

For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.

The truth is, the people here know nothing of the republican Negro hate prevalent in our glorious land. They measure and esteem men according to their moral and intellectual worth, and not according to the color of their skin. Whatever may be said of the aristocracies here, there is none based on the color of a man's skin.

Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided society. The number of 'peace walls', physical barriers separating Catholic and Protestant communities, has increased sharply since the first cease-fires in 1994. Most people in the region cannot envisage the barriers being removed, according to a recent survey conducted by the University of Ulster. In housing and education, Northern Ireland remains one of the most segregated tracts of land anywhere on the planet. Less than one in ten children attends a school that is integrated between Catholics and Protestant. This figure has remained stubbornly low despite the cessation of violence.

German Bismarck said that the solution of the Irish question lay in having the Irish to swap countries with the Dutch. He added that the Dutch would make Ireland the most beautiful island in the world while the Irish would neglect to mend the dykes left to them by the Dutch and therefore would be drowned.

John Green Sims Whither, World? (Privately published, 1938) p. 78.

The attribution to Bismarck has not been confirmed./definitely not Bismark, it was an English Lord, now trying to find.

I met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand,
And he said, "How's poor ould Ireland, and how does she stand?"
"She's the most distressful country that ever yet was seen,
For they're hanging men and women for the Wearin' o' the Green.

I was stopped by a soldier, he said 'You are a swine'. He hit me with his rifle and he kicked me in the groin, I begged and I pleaded, sure my manners were polite. But all the time I'm thinking of my little Armalite.

A brave RUC man came marching up into our street, six hundred British soldiers he had lined up at his feet. 'Come out, ye cowardly Fenians, come out and fight'. But he cried, 'I'm only joking', when he heard the Armalite.

We share a deep concern for peace and justice in Northern Ireland and condemn all violence and terrorism in that strife-torn land. We support the process of peace and reconciliation established by the Anglo-Irish Agreement, and we encourage new investment and economic reconstruction in Northern Ireland on the basis of strict equality of opportunity and non-discrimination in employment.

We urge peace and justice for Northern Ireland. We welcome the newly begun process of constitutional dialogue that holds so much promise. We encourage investment and reconstruction to create opportunity for all.

In 1845 a blight hit the potato crop in Ireland. While potatoes, brought by the Spanish from Peru, were originally viewed with suspicion in Europe, they turned out to be more nutritious than the staples of the Mediaeval European diet (oats, barley, rye, etc.). Introduced into Ireland, they soon became the basis of improved diet and expanding population. Yet this was a perilous condition. Most of the Irish were tenant farmers engaged in little better than subsistence agriculture. Until Catholic Emancipation, Irish Catholics were not allowed to own land, which means they had no incentive and little opportunity to improve agriculture or accumulate capital. This left them in precarious dependency on the potato, with the further dangers of any monoculture. When the crop failed (20% of potatoes are still lost to blight today), they had nothing.

The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence, and to common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants, and the fatuity of idiots.

What captivity has been to the Jews, exile has been to the Irish. For us, the romance of our native land begins only after we have left home; it is really only with other people that we become Irishmen.

Stony seaboard, far and foreign,
Stony hills poured over space,
Stony outcrop of the Burren,
Stones in every fertile place,
Little fields with boulders dotted,
Grey-stone shoulders saffron-spotted,
Stone-walled cabins thatched with reeds,
Where a Stone Age people breeds
The last of Europe's stone age race.

John Betjeman, "Ireland with Emily", in New Bats in Old Belfries (1945).

There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin,
* * * * * *
But the day star attracted his eyes' sad devotion,
For it rose o'er his own native isle of the ocean,
Where once in the fire of his youthful emotion
He sang the bold anthem of Erin-go-bragh.

There's a dear little plant that grows in our isle,
'Twas St. Patrick himself sure that set it;
And the sun on his labor with pleasure did smile,
And with dew from his eye often wet it.
It thrives through the bog, through the brake, and the mireland;
And he called it the dear little shamrock of Ireland—
The sweet little shamrock, the dear little shamrock,
The sweet little, green little, shamrock of Ireland!

Old Dublin City there is no doubtin'
Bates every city upon the say.
'Tis there you'd hear O'Connell spoutin'
And Lady Morgan making tay.
For 'tis the capital of the finest nation,
With charmin' pisintry upon a fruitful sod,
Fightin' like devils for conciliation,
And hatin' each other for the Love of God.

Charles J. Lever. Attributed to him in article in Notes and Queries (Jan. 2, 1897), p. 14. Claimed to be an old Irish song by Lady Morgan in her Diary, Oct. 10, 1826.

Th' an'am an Dhia, but there it is—
The dawn on the hills of Ireland.
God's angels lifting the night's black veil
From the fair sweet face of my sireland!
O Ireland, isn't it grand, you look
Like a bride in her rich adornin',
And with all the pent up love of my heart
I bid you the top of the morning.

There is a stone there,
That whoever kisses,
Oh! he never misses
To grow eloquent.
'Tis he may clamber
To a lady's chamber
Or become a member
Of Parliament.

Father Prout's addition to Groves of Blarney. In Reliques of Father Prout.

When law can stop the blades of grass from growing as they grow;
And when the leaves in Summer-time their colour dare not show;
Then will I change the colour too, I wear in my caubeen;
But till that day, plaze God, I'll stick to wearin' o' the Green.

Wearin' o' the Green. (Shan-Van-Voght.) Old Irish Song found in W. Steuart Trench's Realities of Irish Life. Dion Boucicault used the first four lines, and added the rest himself, in Arrah-na-Pogue. See article in The Citizen, Dublin (1841), Volume III, p. 65.

For dear is the Emerald Isle of the ocean,
Whose daughters are fair as the foam of the wave,
Whose sons unaccustom'd to rebel commotion,
Tho' joyous, are sober—tho' peaceful, are brave.

Horace and James Smith, Rejected Addresses, Imitation of Moore.

O, love is the soul of a true Irishman;
He loves all that's lovely, loves all that he can,
With his sprig of shillelagh and shamrock so green.

Sprig of Shillelagh. Claimed for Lysaght.

Whether on the scaffold high
Or on the battle-field we die,
Oh, what matter, when for Erin dear we fall.

Quotes reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 107.

A very old author discoursing upon Irishmen, says, " Where Irishmen are good, it is impossible to find better, where they are bad, it is impossible to find worse." I am afraid we have got to this alternative. Treachery was never the character of Irishmen. Courage and intrepidity were their characteristics. Every creature is taught to fight, but boldly and fairly.